From the famous to the exotic, this year's Berlinale has been flooded with features and documentaries centering on music.

"I'm never just looking for portraits, but films with an original approach and the music documentaries we're screening this year have those bridging qualities," says Wieland Speck, the director of the Berlinale Panorama.

He is referring to Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields' film about the world's first punk band, Ramones: End Of The Century, and Andrew Horn's The Nomi Song on the cult figure Klaus Nomi. Both films are portraits of an era as much as the musicians.

Music also plays a major part in Guilherme Coelho's Panorama entry Fala Tu about three Brazilian hip-hop'ers which describes how music changes their lives.

Meanwhile, Thomas Grube and Enrique Sanchez Lansch's Rhythm Is It! about the rehearsals for Stravinsky's Le Sacre Du Printemps starring 250 children from 25 countries, also screens as a Berlinale Special. Antoine Fuqua's blues biopic Lightning In A Bottle also screened out of competition in the festival.

The market has also taken notice. The Ramones film has struck numerous deals for documentary specialist Films Transit, which has sold it to King Records of Japan, the UK's Tartan Films and had pre-sold it to US distributor Magnolia.

Another hot EFM title is Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster. Paramount Home Entertainment (PHE) is understood to be closing in on worldwide DVD rights for the film and a US theatrical deal is also close, with IFC Films leading the pack of buyers.